
Book .6^7^ 

Gopiglit}!? 



COPVKIGHT DEPOSm 



(S^reatness 



(greatnf00 



HENRY OSTROM 

AUTHOR OP *'OUT OF THE CAIN-LIFE," "BBPLETB BBLIGION," 
•♦ THE DEAREST PSALM," ETC. 






CHICAGO 

THE WINONA PUBLISHING COMPANY 

1904 






Two ooeies fleceived 

SEP 3 1904 
Oooyr/ffht Ennry 

CLASS ^ XXc. No. 

W c^ ^ 

COPY B I 



COPYRIGHT, 1904 

BY 

THE WINONA PUBLISHING COMPANY 



AUGUST 



PEEFACE 

Before me as I gave forth the chapters of 
this book I have seen in imagination the young 
man^ the busy, thoughtful and rather consid- 
erate, though faltering, young man. I have 
also seen the young woman^ the studious, am- 
bitious young woman, who doubts betimes the 
reliability of a godly mother's faith. 

And I have seen the eager person at mid-age 
reading the newspaper and magazine and rush- 
ing on to the daily task or the night of amuse- 
ment. 

I have believed that God the Holy Spirit 
would use these pages clear beyond their im- 
poverished merit to help such in the struggle 
for a higher standard of manhood and woman- 
hood. 

Henry Ostrom. 



CONTENTS 

PAGE 

(1) Greatness 9 

(2) Man in the Bible 21 

(3) The Great Sinner 29 

(4) The Great Saviour 37 

(5) Humility 61 

(6) The Broad Man 71 

(7) The Great Book 93 



Greatness 



GREATNESS 

10 WEE the estimate of God and you lower 
i the estimate of man. Lower the esti- 
mate of man and you will lower the 
responsibility of man. Lower the responsibility 
of man and you take the sting out of wrong- 
doing and the song out of right-doing. You 
cheapen life and make the door swing easier 
into suicide and shut it closer against reliable 
and noble living. 

God, we admit, is great beyond all reckoning. 
Man may be either greater or less than our 
common estimate of him. God will be pleased 
and man will be helped by a high estimate. 
May the quality of moral character be im- 
proved proportionately to the raised stand- 
ard. 

What of this day when men and women 
freely call children *'kids" and advise each 
other to "bet their lives"? 

A little boy heard a missionary tell about a 
little African child being traded for a *'kid" 
and it awakened him to opposition against 
that designation for children. 



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The other expression seemed to be the only 
English with which a Chinese restaurant 
keeper out west could say *'yes," for when- 
ever asked a question he would answer ^'You 
bet your life." His scant knowledge of the 
English was evidenced in the slang which he 
could so readily find casting its blight over the 
every-day talk of the people. 

By force of circumstance we are in danger 
of producing a kind of you-press-the-button 
grade of character in man to-day. Vest pocket 
editions are now on the market. We even have 
the Gospel in miniature. It is reported that 
a man in great America offered himself to be 
raffled. He would be the property of the 
lucky winner, and he would do whatever that 
unknown and untried person told him to do. 
The affair is mentioned only that a striking 
illustration of the littleness of man's estimate 
of his worth at the worst may appear. It is 
not exceptional. At the gaming table, with 
the fiery cup, under the sway of passion, and 
even in the thirst for wealth and fame, are not 
men doing this under guise every day? 

Would God stretch man's estimate of him- 
self ? Is man larger than he thinks? And has 
there come a blight over man's sense of who he 
10 



©tcatness 



is, which makes him reckon himself small in 
the moral realm until his right deeds do not 
rate for their worth, nor his wrong deeds 
reveal to him their ruin? 

Everywhere in the Bible man is represented 
as a great creature, excepting when he is 
distinctly contrasted with God. It takes that 
kind of a contrast to set him off. In that 
contrast he is the small dust of the balance, 
but, aside from that, his greatness becomes 
even the contemplation of God. Great enough 
is he to resist God, too great to be anni- 
hilated. 

Strong men from the lower altitudes will find 
themselves dizzy in the mountain heights, 
because there the heart's action is increased 
many per cent. They will discover that in the 
lower country only about one-third their lung 
power is used. There may be very good reasons 
for carrying about with us the larger percent- 
age of physical powers unused, but what if the 
larger percentage of one's spiritual powers is 
also idle? What if we have so reduced the 
estimate as to belittle our possibilities, and, 
consequently, our responsibilities? It appears 
that man, who was originally able to manage 
elephants and lions, is now afraid of a bee, 
11 



Greatness 



while under excitement he can show remark- 
able muscular power, or in some cases of mental 
irregularity appear an intellectual marvel. 
What is normal capacity? We must shun the 
dupe of the spleen. We must not advocate 
indolence. Away with the standard of the 
hypochondriac. But what is the normal? 

We say that there is always room at the top. 
But that view of man calls for the stress and 
strain of competition. It signifies the outdoing 
of the other person and all others, and you will 
have made of them your platform. Our quest 
is rather to find out what grade best fits man. 
Given only the readiness with which he falls 
into worry and discouragement and cowardice, 
one would be willing to conclude that the 
common lot overtaxes him. He is a child 
thrust into hardships suited only to a full- 
grown man, if not too taxing even for that. 

Is that true? There is worry. Yes, but 
there is rest and peace. Discouragement? 
Yes, and joyful hope. Cowardice? Yes, faith 
and courage too. 

When one considers the awful blight which 

falls upon the all-too-leisurely life, when one 

notes the tyranny of idleness, and the war 

prompted and fostered by indolence, the soul 

12 



©teatness 



pants to slake its thirst from such by a draught 
in the swift and cleansed waters of the stren- 
uous life. 

World There is imperishable wealth in 
labor, Next to the grace of God in spiritual 
gifts, what gift to man is so priceless as work? 
It elevates the thought. It curbs the appetite. 
It harnesses the passions. It creates a pano- 
rama and fits its pleasing changes into each 
wakeful hour, and then almost outdoes itself 
with welcomed sleep. Even infants love to 
do things. Grown people are all strenuous. 
That will be accepted for the busy. What of 
the leisurely? Who labors so laboriously as 
the idle? To bury dead time, to slay the 
diseased dream, to allure the next excitement 
near, to defeat the haunting memory, to follow 
a wish till jaded to faintness and yet not have 
gotten out of the hammock during the whole 
chase, to eat mental hash until stupid and 
then be cheated by theories, to be dead-alive 
in an orange grove, or by mountain trail or 
brook, on hotel piazza or in private room — ah ! 
is there any such taxing this side of eternal 
punishment? Indolent people cover their 
fingers with sugar and hold them by the 
devil's hive; busy people, if strong, are at 
13 



<5reatnes6 



least caught running, and their hands cuffing 
right and left, defeat some stingers. Even in 
occupation the normal does not appear to 
favor the less strenuous. 

God is the ''Most High." But man is high. 
He thinks around the world quicker than we 
can say it. He passes from grave to gay, or 
from loving to vicious, like lightning. Who 
can make him out? Who can show himself to 
him so that there are no hidden chambers left 
undiscovered? 

When the Saviour said ''Deny self," he 
would have but added to a dilemma had he 
not said also "Follow me." It will take Him 
to find us. 

You undertake a search for self and you 
say, "I hear him. He is down in the base- 
ment." You hurry down the stairs and there 
he is, studying a bad picture or practicing 
anarchy with his secret powers. You wish to 
capture him, when lo, you hear him in the 
attic. Hurrying to the place, you find him 
spinning theories and refusing, even at the 
appeal of the Christ of Grod, to pray. You 
approach to take him, and now he is in the 
dining room eating and drinking — drunken, 
but when you draw near he has staggered to 
14 



Greatness 



the porch, and is boasting in drunken tones of 
his own intellect and helpful deeds. Now you 
may capture him. But he is not himself. 
Tarry. For shortly he will sing or speak until 
thousands are swayed by his effort. Christ 
must find and capture the self we are to deny. 
Pronounce a man sane and we will hold him 
responsible, even for neglect. Murder, theft, 
adultery, and the like, he must refuse, but he 
must also do what he can. If fearful, he will 
be classed with the abominable. A little boy, 
playing on the bridge, has fallen into the river. 
N^o one blames a horse in the pasture for the 
boy's drowning. No one says that the tree 
whose shadow screens the place is to blame, 
nor the bridge ten feet away. But the man 
who saw him drown will be asked, "Did you 
throw a rope, or did you call for help, or did 
you leap in to the rescue?" And he may say, 
"No, I had just nothing to do with it." That 
will implicate him at once. He is blamed and 
must be held responsible for not doing what he 
should have done. Even divorces are granted 
in the courts for non-support. In the parable 
of the talents and the great summing up of 
that twenty-fifth chapter of Matthew's Gospel, 
neglect is the enemy aimed at. Overt wrong 
15 



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is very wrong, but man is responsible for an 
appreciable estimate of his accountability. 
The man who hid the talent in the napkin 
pleaded that the Master was exacting, but his 
own words condemned him as guilty of dis- 
counting his responsibility — a condition which 
seems to be at the foundation of many wrong 
deeds to-day. 

What man may be or may do, boldly 
affirms what he is. To be sure, that does not 
affirm what he does. But no responsible man 
lives who has not an outlook. His eyes are in 
the front of his head. He sees himself another 
man some day. Whether the picture be that 
of man writhing in defeat, or marching in 
triumph, it must precede him ; it will beckon 
to him. It is his to-morrow. But only an 
unmanned man sees defeat as his beckoner. 
With unlimited possibilities along the open way 
before him, the true man (and all are respon- 
sible for being that) sees an enabling in the hand 
of every possibility. His range is the plan of 
the Infinite. He is an explorer, the sufficiency 
of whose guarantees never fail to equal the 
emergencies. And their duration is eternal. 
This could not be affirmed of any save a 
creature of greatness. 

16 



Greatness 



Viewed under the dominion of law, as exist- 
ing only, man's range is pitiable. Gravita- 
tion, duration, vegetation and ten thousand 
laws sway him as absolutely as they do the 
limb of a tree or a dog. But viewed as living 
and not only as existing, man within proper 
limits is the lord of law. He defies gravita- 
tion, he becomes historian and prophet with 
lightning-like dispatch, thus overtaking dura- 
tion. The product of vegetation, poison to 
deadliness, he more than matches with an 
antidote. With a little lever he can master 
the sea, the lightnings, and the majestic 
tempest. That lever was shaped after the 
pattern and by the skill formerly wrapt in the 
might of the mind of the man. 

May we not rightly condemn ourselves within 
the church for insulting both God and man by 
belittling human responsibility? Why, we 
have even publicly expressed the theory that 
the church when large and influential does by 
virtue of her very prosperity become 
endangered. What fads, what petty dis- 
cussions, what formal time-markings have 
sickened the heart of many enthusiastic 
church members ! And why do these things 
exist? Let it be remembered that ''Follow 
17 



©teatness 



thou me" is the best def eater of the mere 
question asking, "Lord, and what shall this 
man do?" If we had felt the force of the 
great Christian commission and had pro- 
ceeded to carry it out as the disciples of the 
first century of the Christian era did, we would 
have been too busy for fads and petty dis- 
cussions and too gloriously rapturous for bald 
formalities. How notably the business of the 
Christian to publish the Gospel of the Messiah 
to all people is set out by Jesus! Matthew's 
Gospel has it near its conclusion. Mark's has 
it. So has Luke's. And John's also. What 
"go" there is in it! And what scope! 

"Go ye therefore and teach all nations" 
(Matthew). 

"Go ye into all the world and preach the 
Gospel to the whole creation" (Mark). 

"That repentance and remission of sins 
should be preached in his name among all 
nations" (Luke). 

"That they all may be one; that the world 
may believe that thou hast sent me; as the 
Father hath sent me, even so send I you'*'* 
(John). 

Add to these Gospel commissions the Eoyal 
Proclamation of Acts 1:8: "Ye shall be 
18 



©reatness 



witnesses unto me unto the uttermost parts of 
the earth." 

We reckon up many things accomplished by 
the church, but in this one thing we clothe 
ourselves with shame, we have not made a 
business of carrying the Gospel to the 
heathen. By the hundred thousand these 
people who never heard of Jesus pay their 
money, take long journeys, buy the trinkets, 
obey the priests, help build the shrines, 
bathe, suffer, die. They want something. 
Their conduct signifies soul-hunger. 

When a missionary told a Chinaman that 
God gave His Son to save us all, the 
Chinaman replied, '^Preposterous! You tell 
me that the Son of God came to earth to save 
us all nineteen hundred years ago and we 
never heard of it; it cannot be." 

Christian, to you and me, as to the Jews of 
old, are committed the oracles of God — the 
Gospel of Jesus the Saviour and King — to be 
preached in every nation for a witness. The 
peoples should have heard of it. We were 
created and redeemed that they might hear 
of it. We should have multiplied our efforts 
for this work by the thousands, then our petty 
performances would have been unknown. The 
19 



©reatness 



great man with a great Gospel, carrying out 
a great commission, would not have done so 
little had he been better possessed of the sig- 
nificance of it all. A trifling estimate of 
man has made us talk wisely about heathen 
oddities; their feet, their finger-nails, their 
methods of greeting, and there they are, they 
to whom Jesus is no more really come than 
that twice two are a hundred and two to you. 
Oh, did we not know that such sorrow, such 
disappointment, such groping, such dearth, 
such death, represent the soul's call for just 
what the Christians' Gospel supplies? It is a 
great being tossed upon billows of need where 
his broken spar piteously calls for the Gospel 
ship. Man is so great that the Christian man 
must heave to and give free passage to this 
imperiled one. One? Nay, these hundreds of 
millions. 



20 



/IDanintbe JBiDIe 



MAN IN THE BIBLE 

Origin. — That statement made in the first 
chapter of Genesis, "And the Lord said, Let us 
make man," seems as if it were the climax to 
some great meditation. As if the Lord had 
resolved to carry out a plan quite in contrast 
with His other doings. He will now make man. 
Whatever theories of the origin of man may be 
advanced, we may well remember that no one of 
them does justice to man or reverence to God 
which fails to take note of this. There is 
enough of the extraordinary in the wording 
of this passage to outreach and overlap all 
accountings for man in the terms of ''origin of 
species," ''descent of man," or "ascent of 
man." "And God said. Let us make man in 
our own image, after our likeness : and let him 
have dominion over the fish of the sea, and 
over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, 
and over all the earth, and over every creeping 
thing that creepeth upon the earth." Add to 
this the statement in Genesis 2: 22: "Builded 
he a woman" (marginal reading). 

Early Equipment. — It need not surprise us 
to hear in these later days of the testimony of 
21 



©reatness 



buried cities, their tablets and buildings, their 
implements and trinkets bearing testimony to 
the scholarship and skill of Moses. The very 
names given to persons and to cities reveal a 
thought and an insight quite remarkable. 
Noah's resources as a manager and Adam's 
skill in naming the animals would make each 
a prodigy in our day. 

Early Distinction. — Why should the early 
history of man record God's willingness to 
allow a plea for Sodom? A plea, too, in 
which the sayings of man are met by the 
changed sayings of God. That incident, let 
me say it reverently, suggests man's gaining 
his point over God. Fifty to forty-five, forty- 
five to forty, forty to thirty, thirty to twenty, 
twenty to ten, — five steps did Abraham take 
up into the claim which God honored. Though 
in contrast with God he was but dust and 
ashes, yet he is great enough in God's estimate 
for such bargain-seeking. 

Moses, standing between the people and God, 
undertakes to claim the right to be assistant 
book-keeper for the government of the skies. 
For that matter, every man has something to 
do with that. Men to-day may not dream that 
the silent resolve leaves blank the space where 
22 



/roan in tbe 3Bfble 



their names should be recorded as loyalists to 
the Governor and Government of the universe. 
But Moses would either gain his plea, or else 
change the book-keeping — ^'If notj blot out, I 
pray thee, my name." 

Every law and every promise given by God 
on the one side, and every sacrifice, every 
prayer, and every act of obedience on the other 
3ide, distinguished man as a party in a 
partnership where lightnings and thunders 
might be expected to frighten the timid. But 
man was too great to quite evade it. Of 
politics and arithmetic, of husbandry and law, 
of skill and prayer, he built the eminence from 
which he communed with God. To be sure, 
they were God's gifts, but man was great 
enough to be the object of their bestowing. 

The announcement of the reasons for the flood 
is of such a character, that if it were set out 
quite alone we would be ready to conclude that 
man had become too resourceful to manage. 

The changes in governmental order men- 
tioned in the Old Testament reveal a problem 
which perplexes even to this day. Shall man 
assert harmony or anarchy; shall it be law 
or mob? Is he to be daylight or lightning 
stroke, cheery fire-place or holocaust? 
23 



©reatness 



Estimates, — We are being prepared for the 
statement of the eighth Psalm, *'Thou hast 
made man but little lower than God.'' The 
breath he breathed into man's nostrils begins 
to rouse our thought as if it had become a 
cyclone. Eead from that Psalm. (Psalm 8, 
verses 2, 5, 6, 7, 8.) 

But what shall we say when we get to the 
eighty-second Psalm and hear it declared, ^'Ye 
are gods," our thoughts bearing us to the 
tenth of John's Gospel, where Jesus defending 
His own duty quotes this text and applies it 
to men? 

One sufferer of Gadara is so capacious that 
the legion of devils cast out of him is sufficient 
to affect three thousand hogs, while it is 
recorded that one woman had been the 
habitation of seven devils. But she, after all 
that, mounted to distinction. 

Note the figures used to represent man. He 
is not a threshold, he is a temple of the Holy 
Spirit. He is a building of God. 

When we read John 14: 2, ''In my Father's 
house are many mansions," what roomy and 
splendid dwelling places we picture in our 
minds! But in verse twenty-three the very 
same word for mansions is used again. There 
24 



/IDan in tbe Bible 



man is the mansion, for Jesus says of the man 
who loves Him, ''My Father will love him and 
we will come to him and make our mansion 
with him." 

God is said to dwell in man and (as if to 
add to the extension of size) he is to walk in 
them. Wilson translates the passage, "Ye 
are God's husbandry, ye are God's field. " The 
Saviour estimates him against the whole 
world. 

[It would seem admissible to add here an 
extract from the Book of Ecclesiasticus, 47th 
chapter, 15th verse, referring to Solomon's 
wisdom, "Thy soul covered the whole earth."] 

No wonder the Saviour should open His 
thought of man to us so fully on the last great 
day of that Feast of Tabernacles, to picture 
man's capacity so great that rivers of living 
water should flow out of any man who drinks 
from Him. As in counting, the thought 
expands, going from the lesser to the greater — 
one, two, three, four, five — so go from drops of 
water to tricklings, from tricklings to the 
little streams, from the little streams to the 
meadow brooks, the great creeks and to the 
rivers. With the Jordan, the Tigris and 
Euphrates and the Nile so near, we can gain 
25 



©rcatness 



quite surely the picture in Jesus' mind when 
He said, **Out of him shall flow rivers." He 
would not call any stream a river which would 
excite the humorous comment, because a fair 
consideration would pronounce it only a big 
creek. It is also in the plural, two rivers, and 
how many more? If man's nature is a conti- 
nent, there are several rivers included in the 
make-up of each continent on this earth. 

Man in the Gospel is called to be a servant 
of God, a friend of God, an heir of God, a son 
of God, a King and a Priest unto God, more 
than conqueror and a partaker of the divine 
nature. For him God is a seeker, and at the 
door of his heart God knocks before he 
enters. 

Here man is commanding. It is customary 
for us to admit the truth, so verified by 
history, that the law is above us and beyond 
us, but this must not crowd from our thoughts 
the truth that it was given to us. A parent 
does not give commands to an infant. The 
greater the responsibility the sturdier the 
commands — as on shipboard and in armies — 
and God, addressing man in the ever striking 
words, "Thou shalt" and "Thou shalt not," 
must be speaking to a great capability, or else 
26 



/IDan in tbe Bible 



the expression is an exaggeration. And 
Christ's ''But I say unto you," with what 
follows it, is a sturdy associate of the 
expressions ''Thou shalt" and "Thou shalt 
not." 

When in the old Jewish order God demands 
of men certain offerings and tithings, and in 
the New Testament, with more appealing 
emphasis, demands of him his whole being, 
there is ample reason for the procedure. Man 
can give, or refuse. 

Those pledges of God that on certain con- 
ditions — which man can carry out — certain 
results will be granted by Him, set forth God 
as treating with man in the terms of a contract. 
"Come now, let us reason together" is almost 
a language of equality; how startlingly con- 
descending! "Come unto me" is, in the spirit 
of a plea, great enough to be the subject of a 
promise. It presignifies greatness enough to 
receive the result of it when God is the 
promisor. 

Even the note of warning has with it the 
impending penalty. Man is beyond the kinder- 
garten; he becomes a culprit. Along the 
great highways where character may overcome, 
there is heard echoing and re-echoing the 
27 



Greatness 



message from the lips of infinite Holiness, 
*'Walk before me and be thou perfect." 

Who is that great and radiant one in the 
perfected kingdom of the perfect King? That 
is man. He it is who ''shall shine forth as the 
sun." Who hath ears to hear, let him hear. 



XCbe ©reat Sinner 



THE GREAT SINNER 

Wrong Bent, — Even little children require 
to be warned not to steal, or be cruel, or 
tell falsehoods. They do not require to be 
warned not to be too kind, or too true. 

In methods of teaching and of transportation, 
and of business generally, as well as in the 
design of our homes, the food we eat and the 
way we dress, we accept and adopt the most 
accredited discovery of progress ; otherwise the 
streets would be full of oxen and jumpers, or 
carts; the homes would be huts, and the 
garments and decorations as of days long gone 
by. Instead, we have the swift car, the rubber 
tire, the commodious home, the modern 
garment. 

But in moral action, we do wrong just as 
they did centuries ago. The man becomes 
intoxicated just as Noah did. He tells a 
falsehood just as Abraham did. We sin old- 
fashioned. Books have been written by the 
million on how to live right. The Bible has 
survived its millions of antagonists. Penalties 
for wrong-doing have been meted out in prison 
and on scaffold. Schools and colleges and 



Oreatness 



universities have theorized on how to live, and 
the graduates have come forth by the thousand : 
and yet, children take other children's pencils 
at school; little girls get jealous of the color of 
other little girls' hair; little boys fight over the 
honor and distinction of their respective 
fathers, and grown people break covenants and 
die in shame; and this, now and again, even 
among the immediate descendants of the godly. 

Is it correct to say that man is good if you 
will only draw him out? Is it true that there 
is an angel in every man? If there is, it seems 
hard to hatch it out. Men do have better 
moments ; higher thoughts nestle in the spring 
days of better desire in our intellects. Never- 
theless, how long will you require to draw a 
lemon's juice before you get sugar? When 
men admire the better and the best, they are 
just getting ready to regret that they had not 
reached them. 

If you should go down a dark highway before 
me bearing a brightly lighted lantern, it would 
show the way to me, but it would be your 
light. Now, *' Christ is the true light that 
lighteth every man that cometh into the 
world," but it is His light. I have heard this 
teaching called the ''doctrine of prevenient 
30 



Ube Great Sinner 



grace." If God is so gracious that He will 
shed the light upon my dark life, why should 
I proudly assume that the light is my own, 
though I do not hold the lantern, nor have I 
paid the price for it, nor do I seem able to 
carry it one step even after I have made a 
resolve to do so? Ah, man's tendency is 
wrongward, but God is after us. Man is 
greatness diseased ; he is greatness gone wrong. 

*'Why are you so naughty?" inquired the 
grandmother of the little child. 

"God made me naughty," came the prompt 
answer. 

''No, my dear, God does not make children 
naughty." 

"Then the angels made me naughty," the 
child declared. 

"No, darling, the angels do not make people 
naughty." 

Her answer was ready. She said naively, "I 
guess it must be in the blood." 

Alienated. — Man has gone far from home; 
so far, that for long spaces of time he forgets 
God, his Creator. He should properly 
recognize God as his Father, but in the 
majesty of his rebellion it must be said of him, 
"You are of your father, the Devil." ''If God 
31 



©reatness 



were your Father, ye would love me." Swift 
through the spaces of his vast stamping 
ground he makes his way, in collusion with a 
rebel government. The Master calls him to 
be a son of the Highest, and the great Apostle 
says that he may become a child of the Lord 
God Almighty. But, as it is, he will have to 
turn his face toward Him and start forth, 
tugging at his ragged garments, admitting his 
shame, and in the presence of the Infinite feel 
hardly fit to be a servant, before he can 
confidently say, '^Father — Father, I have 
sinned." 

Man is Guilty. — His conduct must not be 
classified as a slip, or a mishap, which should 
be excused upon condition of his not having 
meant it. He is great enough to be true. The 
courts of a country hold that to be true, and he 
is great enough to be either acquitted or con- 
demned. Being a rebel, he is condemned. 
That shaking of his frame when he is aroused 
to the realization of his guilt must be accounted 
for by something powerful within. Powerful, 
indeed, it is ; so powerful that it will discharge 
the fountain of tears, turn sleep out of the 
dominion of his life, rack the nerves, fill the air 
with wailing, and slay a Judas. Yesterday, 
32 



xrbe Great Sinner 



Jesus called him friend and took his kiss; to- 
day, guilt has crushed him. 

When the westerner left his gambling and 
vicious living and became a convert to Christ, 
it is said that some old associates, who were 
fond of his witty stories, hired a man to go 
upon his lawn and tell him the base things he 
had done and call him hard names, and jeer 
at the religious profession he had made. They 
said, ''If we can get him to lose his temper, 
he will come back to us and give us more of his 
funny stories." 

But after the wretch had delivered himself 
of his words on the lawn, the convert called 
out: ''That's so, Jake; that's so, only you 
haven't told half of it. If you should talk all 
day you could not say enough. I am a worse 
sinner than any man could tell. Since the 
searchlight of God has been turned onto my 
life I have seen it; but, oh! Christ has saved 
me from it." 

Yes, the wrong has broken forth. The deed 
has been done. Its influence, like a rolling 
snowball on a wet day, seems to gather as it 
goes, and regrets will not make the fact any 
less real — man is a great sinner. Deceptive, 
fraudulent, conceited, daring, law-breaking, 
33 



Greatness 



hell-tending ; this is man, as he is not unf re- 
quently seen to go. 

It will not do to lightly pass over the Scrip- 
ture statement by saying, ''That is poetry.'* 

The would-be leader who suggests that a 
considerable percentage of the Scriptures is 
exaggeration, will leave his teaching when he 
considers the eagerness with which God enters 
into the conflict against the sin of this great 
creature, man. Blood, and fire, and pain, and 
tears, and sighs, and groans, and death, are not 
in this book underscored for effect. They 
stand out not one whit inflated, to answer the 
consuming question. What shall be done to save 
this great creature, man? 

Those old hymns beginning, ''A charge to 
keep I have;" ''There is a fountain filled with 
blood;" "Oh! where shall rest be found?" 
and "I come, thou wounded Lamb of God," 
are not exaggerations. They are the cry of the 
Philippian jailer put to music, and it does not 
always require an earthquake to prompt their 
expression. 

I am thinking that the average reader, stand- 
ing before a judge and jury in a courtroom, 
would rather be pronounced capable and 
guilty, than semi-imbecile. 
34 



XCbe ©reat Sinner 



The Bible represents a relentless struggle 
for which account could never be giyen with- 
out the admission of the awful fact of human 
sin. Here *' wrong," that is, ''wrung," repre- 
sents the violence with which man has been 
wrenched out of uprightness. Here ' ' sin, ' ' that 
is, ''missing the mark," represents his defect 
and defeat. The word "transgression," that 
is, "going out of the path," in one breath 
utters a limitless history of wandering. And 
in "iniquity," that is, "twisted out of right 
form," we see the majesty in ruins. 

This it is which displays the great creature 
man as drunken, adulterous, thievish, idola- 
trous, blasphemous, thankless, murderous, 
hypocritical, disobedient, wrecked. 

This it is which has left its blot upon the 
records of such potent characters as Moses, 
David, Daniel and Paul, Miriam, Hannah, 
Mary and Martha, until the most distinguished 
man of the group quotes in his Epistle the 
withering comment, "All have sinned." 



35 



TCbe (Breat Saviour 



THE GREAT SAVIOUR 

He shall be great. He shall be called 
Wonderful. Thou hast given Him a name 
which is above every name. The Christ, the 
Son of the living God. Jesus Christ, the 
same yesterday and to-day and forever. King 
of kings and Lord of lords. My Lord and my 
God. 

Not from the earth. — Jesus came from above. 
Fakirs, wonder workers and prophets struggle 
up into prominence, battling against obstacles 
within and without. But not so with Jesus. 
He descended. As the shining down of an 
orb He came, a light into the world. Men, 
and even the mightiest of men, come forth 
upon the earth, and are of the earth. Man 
springs up to action. He came down and was 
made flesh. John 3: 13; John 6: 38. 

Not struggling after existence, — From the 
time of the boyhood of Jesus, when His 
parents found Him composedly in the Temple, 
until His calm pronouncement, ''Peace be unto 
you," after His resurrection, there is a marked 
absence of the struggle so common to man, 
and a marked presence of the sense of com- 
37 



©teatness 



petency in the midst of adverse conditions. 
There is enough of the element of conflict to 
bring Him near to us in our struggle, but 
there is ever with it a distinguishing relief, 
signifying sufficiency, supremacy in the 
presence of the conflict. Take the account of 
the temptation, for instance. His replies are 
all classics of composure. 

He disdains bargain-making for gain, and 
while he passes away from the crowd rather 
than be thrown over the precipice, it is that 
the TIME for so great a transaction of mercy as 
that which engages him shall be fully allowed. 
He exhibits miraculous complacency in the 
storm at sea, in the midst of the hungry multi- 
tude, in the presence of Pilate and in numerous 
other instances. While we cannot but view with 
deepest interest the agony of Gethsemane and 
of Calvary — that mystery of sacrifice and re- 
demption — yet preceding it He calmly declares, 
''I lay down my life of myself. I have power 
to lay it down and I have power to take it 
again." In the midst of it He refuses to call 
for the help of either men or angels, and after 
it there is an evident absence of any excited 
interest in making the people believe that He 
has risen from the dead. There is a kind of 



Zbc Great Saviour 



usualness about His conduct which bears in 
upon human judgment like the sunlight break- 
ing into day. The waves of the sea, the 
products of the land, the dealings with enemies, 
the falseness of former friends, fail to reveal 
confusion on His part. You cannot picture 
Him wry -faced in the storm, or wincing under 
the glare, or nonplused in an undertaking. 
Does He sigh? It is in sympathy with human 
need. Does He groan? It is for a like pur- 
pose. Does He weep? The prompting is the 
same. And this alone can answer for 
Gethsemane and Calvary, for which He says 
He came. Mark 4:40; John 11:25; John 
16:33. 

Ifot conscious of deficiency. — The mountain- 
peak men of history, as their characters rise up 
above the common landscape and foot-hills of 
the human, declare their consciousness of 
defect. 

Note what Confucius says of himself: ''The 
wise man and the man of virtue — how dare I 
rank myself with them? It may simply be said 
of me that I ever strive to improve, and that I 
never grow weary of teaching others. I may 
be equal to other men in knowledge of literature, 
but I have failed to reach the character of a 



©teatness 



superior man, one who carries out in his con- 
duct what he teaches. These are the things 
which cause me fear : that I do not properly 
cultivate virtue; that I do not discuss 
thoroughly what I learn ; that I am unable to 
act with righteousness when I know it; and 
that I am not able to change that which is not 
good. I am not one who was born wise." 

But Jesus never expresses a consciousness of 
moral defect. Wrongs there are all around 
Him in the hearts of the people, but none in 
His. Standing in the presence of Pilate, there 
is not only no consciousness of deficiency, but 
He unrolls the scroll, bright with oncoming 
splendors, until you can read a future without 
a flaw. 

In the presence of sin He is so actually not 
of it that He will say, ''Your sins are forgiven 
you," or, ''Go and sin no more," with the 
apparent restf ulness and composure manifested 
by a mother who would say to her boy, "Your 
face is clean. Be home early." With what 
abandon He speaks of foxy Herod ! 

In the presence of devils, He declares that 
it requires but the use of the finger to cast 
them out. Matthew 28 : 18 ; John 8 : 29 ; 17 : 2. 

Not a Dreamer. — The noted patriarchs and 
40 



Xlbe Great Sai^iour 



prophets of the Old Testament dreamed. They 
saw visions and undertook to interpret them. 
Jacob dreamed; Joseph dreamed; Ezekiel 
dreamed, but Jesus is no dreamer. He talks 
of affairs considered unusual and occult, but 
with a quiet familiarity and a native sense of 
understanding entirely apart from the dreamer. 
What a change it would make if it were 
written, ''I dreamed," instead of ^'I say 
unto you," or if we must bury His expression, 
to substitute for it, ''This is a vision I have 
had." 

With Him truth is evidently first-hand. No 
wonder, then. He says, "I speak that which I 
have seen with my Father," and ''I am the 
truth." 

In Christendom the Shakespeare, the Crom- 
well, the Washington and the Lincoln — these 
seem not to have even intended themselves to 
be the forge where the heat was generated, 
but, rather, the sparks from the anvil; but 
Jesus is both forge and heat and sparks. John 
3: 11; Matthew 5: 27, 34, 39, 44; John 7: 15, 
46; Matthew 7: 29. 

Without Fault, — What might there is in the 
fact that it can be stated that there has 
appeared among us one clothed in our flesh, 
41 



Greatness 



looking out of human eyes, eating and drink- 
ing as a man, against whom not a single 
criticism can be uttered! Not a single 
criticism? Not one. 

Permit me to call your attention, reader, to 
the incident in the Pharisee's house, when the 
sinful woman drops tears upon His feet, and 
allows her flowing hair to brush over them, 
and kisses them repeatedly, and there is not a 
hint of a suggestion of inordinate conduct on 
His part, but, rather, there is the statement, 
''Thy sins are forgiven thee;" as if there had 
not been a movement in His body to anything 
inordinate prompted by that woman's conduct. 
His great, pure, faultless character deals with 
a wrong of her character, pronounces her 
pardoned, and sends her away blessed. This 
is unlike man. Luke 23 : 4, 41 ; I Peter 2 : 22 ; 
John 8: 46; 15:25; Isa. 53:9. 

Not a Mystifier. — The fakir and the policy- 
monger calls to his aid the schemes of the 
mystifier. Conjuring, trickery and probably 
hypnotism have been wrought in India, for 
instance, for ages, and in the name of religion. 
Befogged with mystery, the wonder-workings 
of the Hindu have held the interest and 
devotion of the ten thousands. It has been 
42 



XCbe ©reat Sa\)iouc 



sought to transplant them even to America. 
Is it possible to transplant them without 
transplanting also their consequences? Con- 
sequences verily belching with terror to 
intelligence, to womanhood, to children and 
to that honor due the crystalline truth which 
Jesus freely gives. 

In contrast with all this mystifying, Jesus 
illuminates, opens, explains, illustrates, 
exemplifies. To be sure, the inner truth will 
only be revealed to the truth cherishers. 
Truth rejecters, seeing, shall not see. But to 
the truth seeker He is so ready to guarantee 
that nothing shall be done in a corner that He 
declares, ''If it were not so, I would have told 
you." With an openness and plainness 
entirely opposed to the mystifier He says, 
"Learn of me." And as if determined to 
illuminate and inform us to the utmost. He 
promises the Holy Spirit will guide us into all 
truth when He finds us unable to bear more 
during His ministry among us in the flesh. 
Behold here the great Truth-discloser. 
Matthew 10: 26, 27; John 14: 2; 17: 8. 

Tlie Principle Imparter. — Leaders of re- 
ligious thought in Asia, and elsewhere, provide 
for shrines, issue calls to certain waters, build 
43 



©reatness 



about their wonder workings communities 
where men sell trinkets and charms and idols, 
but Jesus, though of Jewish extraction, turns 
away from even the Temple, that masterpiece 
of material construction for holy worship, and 
makes it plain that wherever a heart will be 
pure, the object of His teaching and life is 
being fulfilled. With one lift extraordinary, 
He places principle above all material things 
and exalts truth above wonder working. His 
signs are worked as the shoulders to lift truth 
up into sight, rather than as the results of 
truth themselves exalted to view. Matthew 
23:23; John 4:21, 25. 

The Sin Def eater. — Men there have been 
who have gone down into poverty and sore trial 
out of sympathy for their fellow men in sin. 
They have been the means of arousing people 
to a sense of the horrors of sin. But it is the 
claim of Jesus that He meets and defeats sin. 
When some man of our race endures much 
because of the distress of the people around 
about him, we say, how kind, how pathetic! 
But when Jesus lives and teaches, and dies and 
rises again, we say in the presence of this 
offering for guilt and sin, how mighty! Given 
His word and it is forgiveness. Given His 
44 



Xlbe ©teat Saviour 



blood and it is cleansing. Given His promised 
Spirit and it is empowering. Without sin 
Himself, He meets it and defeats it. Mark 
2:10; IJohn3:5, 8. 

The Death Def eater, — ^^Ninety-nine men out 
of every hundred would refuse to write the 
account of the resurrection as the Gospels 
give it. There is such an utter absence of 
trying to make out the case. We would say, 
leave out the journey to Emmaus; leave out 
the statement that Mary did not instantly 
know Him. It is the mountain peak insuper- 
able in history. Have it moulded and shaped 
like a post out of a lathe. But not so the 
account. Men act everyday-like. Men tell 
the incident as if they were so committed to 
telling the truth, that they would let it out if 
it incriminated them. The napkin is folded. 
No matter how much the saying so does away 
with the element of dashiness. The angel sits 
on the stone. No matter how much the 
saying of this reduces the excitement element. 
Thomas refuses to believe. No matter how 
much the narrating of it postpones the 
establishing of the evidence of the fact. Peter 
stands forth and declares the victory of Jesus 
over death, his life in his hand, as if he knew 
45 



©teatness 



no better. Could he know any better? Those 
men and those women stay by the fact. But 
they gained no money. They received no 
congratulations. Homes were not opened to 
them. What do they mean? It is explained, 
*'He is risen." 

Go in your observations over the earliest 
history of man down to the time of the claim 
of His resurrection, then begin this very hour 
and go back through modern and medieval 
history, and stand by that same fact, and 
account for what has been heard and seen on 
either journey, if you deny the resurrection of 
Jesus Christ from the dead. Matthew 16 : 21 ; 
John 10:18; 11:26. 

A Consideration. — So safe was the very 
infancy of Jesus that to have been born under 
conditions of such adequate protection as He 
would be a guarantee of growing up to man- 
hood. Did the reader ever dream that His 
birth was associated with such provisions? 
Do you not feel that your babyhood would be 
safe, even crowded out of the inn with Him? 
With Him, what castle would ever substitute 
for that without Him? What army of pro- 
tectors would ever equal that without him? Oh, 
the angel song, the visit of the magi— the fury 
46 



Ube Great Sa\>iour 



of Herod — these combined do not more than 
hint at the distinction of Jesus' birth and 
infancy. Matthew 2 : 16, 23. 

World-wide Dominion, — Standing there on 
that little strip of land at the head of the 
Mediterranean Sea, He claims dominion wide 
as the race. Eome holds Palestine ; the proud 
eagles are everywhere ; the taxes are collected 
by Eome. But up over Eome and Greece, and 
all the progress of the past, ages, He extends 
His hand and says to His followers, ''You shall 
be witnesses unto me in Jerusalem, and in all 
Judea and Samaria, and unto the uttermost 
parts of the earth. Go ye into all the world, 
and preach the gospel to the whole creation." 
Without a home, without personally writing 
a literature, without turning out inventions, 
without being known as an extensive traveler. 
He says: ''Go ye and make disciples of all the 
nations, baptizing them in the name of the 
Father and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost." 
Luke 24: 47; Acts 1:8. 

Master of the Centuries. — We know what it 
is to see crises in morals and in industries. 
When crises which verge upon peril appear in 
nations, we are astonished and affrighted. 
When some great question becomes so agitated 
47 



©reatness 



that collision is imminent, and no one has 
arisen to speak the quieting word or solve the 
difficulty, the community wavers like the tag 
on a door key. 

But Jesus meets the crises of the world for 
all time. We hear much of the age of 
religions, but you cannot properly credit the 
character of Jesus unless you credit Him as 
slain before the foundation of the world. 
That ought to be antiquity enough for any of 
the human. When, however. He comes in His 
day and ushers in the wealth of His mind by 
the use of the word " Christian, '* then the 
extent of His supremacy above the calendar 
dawns upon us. And the ages do not bury 
Him. He rises and overcomes all. The less 
or more harmful impostors but serve to 
establish this. 

It seems that in later times there has taken 
root in the Anglo-Saxon mind the thought 
that whatever men intend to do for the bad or 
the worse, the hope of salvation is in the 
teaching of Jesus. And the Japanese, with 
percentages of the population of other Asiatic 
countries, though they may but keep the fifth 
line from the great plain headline of Ohristly 
teaching (after the student has gotten the 
48 



Zbc ©teat Saviour 



writing to run crooked and the letters to be 
irregular), yet they want, to say the least of 
it, the results of Christian civilization. The 
late Dr. John Henry Barrows, after his return 
from the Haskell lecture engagement in India, 
assured us repeatedly that the more prominent 
thought of India would subscribe to the state- 
ment that, with its idols tumbling and its 
hoary religions outgrown, Jesus alone could 
answer the Hindu want. 

Let the reader note that in the year of our 
Lord 1903, Miss Sorabjee, a Mohammedan 
woman, appeared unveiled and in modern dress 
upon the platform in Bombay, and declared 
that in a population of sixty million Moham- 
medans only four thousand girls are now 
attending school, and added that such a con- 
dition was a disgrace to the members of the 
Mohammedan church. It is said that this is 
the first time that a Mohammedan woman ever 
made an address before a public assembly of 
Mohammedans in India, because custom 
requires Mohammedan women to conceal 
their faces. And this occurred with many 
men present. 

The capitalist says that Jesus will regulate 
capital affairs. The laborer says if we will 
49 



©reatness 



really adopt his teachings and principles, har- 
mony is brought into the ranks of industry. 

Principles without locality or formality; the 
principles of Jesus. The telescope may 
develop ; they are applicable. Communication 
over vast spaces, with or without wire, may 
go on; they fit their places. Transportation 
by rail, or in water or air, may be provided on 
any prairie, out over any frozen sea, up into 
any inlet ; these principles make themselves at 
home in the common heart of surrendered 
man. And the changing of moons, the explod- 
ing of worlds, the discovery of new systems 
or the use of new methods, only serve to pro- 
claim Him still, Jesus, the Master of the 
Centuries. John 17: 5; Heb. 13: 8. 

Saviour of the World. — No other character 
combines these two majesties in one. Master 
and Saviour ! There may be a friendly master, 
or a masterful friend ; but even that is hardly 
considered safe outside of the fences of 
defended personal rights. But Jesus is this, 
and more. He is the Saviour Master, and the 
Master Saviour. It never would be consented 
to, were it not that His name is Love. But 
that granted, He masters us until we feel 
honored to be but a hair on His foot, and He 
50 



Ube ©teat Sa\)iour 



saves us until nothing else will do than for us 
to be conformed to His likeness and share His 
throne. He will have the last crevice in the 
wall of the basement of our beings, or the little 
crack between the roof boards of the attic, but 
He will dissipate the peril from the one, and 
fill with purity the other. The Overseer, the 
Superintendent, the Manager, the Master of 
thy soul is He ; the Friend, the Welcomer to 
the household, the Confidant, the Brother, the 
Christ. 

With Him the white and the black, the 
aged and the young, the learned and the 
ignorant; male and female, bond and free — 
the world — all are the subject of His loving 
offer. John 3:16; I John 2:1,2; Gal. 3 : 28. 

Friendliness without Policy. — Jesus shocks 
the Jews with His devotion to friendliness. 
At the marriage in Cana, in the sinner's 
house, with the little children, at the grave 
of Lazarus, calling His followers * 'friends" 
(even Judas at the hour of betrayal that)^ 
saying to Mary, ''I ascend unto my Father and 
to your Father" — these are a few of the 
exhibitions of friendship for which in His very 
busy life He seems ever to have found leisure, 
though lacking leisure to eat. And yet where 
51 



Greatness 



is there the slightest tinge of policy on all 
this glorious expanse of friendliness? 

He is radical in contrast with Jewish 
formalities. 

He rebukes and condemns even the govern- 
ment. 

He pays the tax, but manifests His supremacy 
over the claim for tax by the way He finds 
the money for it. 

He is the Teacher above Moses before the 
multitude. 

He meets the young man's complimentary 
address with ''Why callest thou me good?" 

He is a King before Pilate. 

He is the possessor of ''all power" after 
His resurrection. 

Surely this is the unpolitic — the true friend 
of man. Matthew 26: 50; Luke 7: 36, 50. 

The Highest and the Lowest. — Men rise to 
distinction in business, literature, statesman- 
ship, or as reformers and religious leaders, but 
Jesus starts with distinction. He proceeds as 
ruler of the church, ruler of the Sabbath, and 
as superseder of Elijah, Lord of David, Master 
of Moses, and the answer to the longings of 
prophets and kings for centuries. 

And yet He shares with us His broiled fish 
52 



XTbe ©reat Sa\>four 



and honeycomb, He gathers His lunch in the 
wheat fields, and we feel that His hunger went 
deeper than all our hunger. His weariness was 
greater than all ours; and to be spit upon, 
scourged, mocked and slain — we never can 
suffer so that that will not have been greater 
than what we endure. 

If some distinguished man should come to 
our community to preach to us day and night 
for a month, rooming in the livery barn and 
making a pile of hay his bed, how we would 
counsel him, to persuade him that he must not 
try to do the work with such inconveniences, 
he would take cold; besides, the public 
comment would not endure such treatment of 
such a man. But Jesus comes to our cattle 
kahn. He says, "I will be poor, hungry, 
weary, smitten, slain; I will taste the dregs 
of the cup of your sorrow for sin." 

How He persists in carrying out this plan of 
fond mercy ! They cannot coax Him out of our 
stable-like lowliness. They cannot hire Him 
out. They cannot frighten Him out. In 
Him, the Highest becomes the lowest, the 
Son of God the elder brother of erstwhile 
thieves and wretches. Matthew 11:29; John 
10:30; Philippians 2 : 7. 
53 



©teatness 



Pre-Incarnate. — Jesus is not an after- 
thought. It is He by whom the Eternal made 
the worlds. By Him were all things made. 
He had glory with the Father before the 
world was. Abraham could well rejoice to see 
the day of Him who could say, ''Before 
Abraham was /^m.'' ''He also himself like- 
wise took part of the same flesh and blood as 
the children." Deny His pre-existence and 
you must deny His post-existence. Ante- 
Bethlehem and post-Olivet stand together. 
He is before all things and by Him all things 
consist. Antiquity is the shadow of His 
garment, who is "the same yesterday and to- 
day and forever." That yesterday indeed. 

[Note. — Who is the Angel Jehovah visiting 
Hagar in Genesis 16: 9, 10, 13? Who is 
wrestling with Jacob in Genesis 32 : 24-30? 
Who is the Angel, the Eedeemer, of whom 
Jacob speaks when more advanced in years, 
mentioned in Genesis 48:16? Who is the 
Angel of God's presence mentioned in Isaiah 
63:9?] 

Tlie Messiah, — The Messiah has come. 

Matthew has not gotten through with the 

message of the second chapter of his Gospel, 

without associating Jesus four times with Old 

54 



XCbe <5veat Sat^tour 



Testament prophecy. Even the chief priests 
and scribes are telling Herod that Bethlehem 
is to be the birthplace of the Shepherd- 
Governor. Paul says that Moses and the 
prophets did say that Christ must suffer, and 
by the resurrection of the dead should proclaim 
light both to the people and the Gentiles. 
Enemies and friends thus associate Jesus with 
the Old Testament prophecy. The Messiah 
has come. To us has spoken the prophet like 
unto Moses. The hope of centuries has 
become fruition. The offering has been made 
once for all. Behold the Lamb of God! 
When, one day, I said to a Jew that I did not 
desire to argue with him, and I certainly would 
not intend to persecute him, but would he tell 
me why the Jewish people had ceased to offer 
sacrifices as of old, he appeared confused and 
said that he could not account for it. Then 
I told him that he might reject if he would, 
but he would some day know that Jesus ful- 
filled the sacrificial programme of the Old 
Testament. Jesus is the sacrifice toward 
which it all pointed. The Messiah has come. 
Matthew 16: 16; John 4: 26. 

Coming Again. — What an absence of geo- 
graphical difficulty characterizes the words 
55 



(Bteatness 



of Jesus and of His close followers as He 
speaks of both heaven and earth ! There is 
not the slightest expression of a gaze into the 
misty space. ''He was and is to come." ''The 
Lord himself shall descend from heaven.'* 
"Looking for that blessed hope and the 
glorious appearing of the great God and our 
Saviour Jesus Christ." "Even so come, Lord 
Jesus; come quickly." The better is yet 
before us. The glorious hope transcends the 
blessed realization. We have had the dawn. 
my soul, picture the noon. Journeyings 
upon the highways of thought leading up to 
Him will be over. In some golden sense He 
will have arrived. He must reign. Argu- 
ments for His messiahship will be concluded, for 
as the lightning lighteneth out of one part of 
heaven unto the other, so shall the coming of 
the Son of Man be. Every eye shall see Him 
and they that pierced Him. For we have 
not followed cunningly devised fables when we 
made known unto you the power and coming 
of our Lord Jesus Christ. He hath said it, "I 
will come again and receive you unto myself." 
The story has hardly started yet. We cannot 
quite say that our wealth is all in the after- 
wards. But what an infinity the future holds 
56 



XTbe Great Sapiout 



for Jesus' friends! John 14:3; Acts 1:11; 
Acts 30:20, 21. 

Wlien Jesus Speahs. — 1. In the miracle at 
Cana Jesus speaks thirty-one words, nine 
directly on the miracle and only six explicit. 

[Note. — ''Fill the waterpots with water." 
John 2: 7.] 

2. In the healing of the nobleman's son, 
Jesus speaks sixteen words; six are definite. 

[Note. — ''Go thy way, thy son liveth." 
John 4: 50.] 

3. In the draught of fishes Jesus speaks 
twenty-one words ; thirteen are direct. 

[Note. — "Launch out into the deep and let 
down your nets for a draught." Luke 5:4.] 

4. In the healing of the leper Jesus speaks 
thirty-six words; only five are direct. 

[Note. — "I will; be thou clean." Matthew 
8:3.] 

6. In the stilling of the sea Jesus speaks 
thirteen words ; but three are direct. 

[Note.— "Peace be still. " Mark 4 : 39.] 

6. In the curing of the demoniac of Gadara, 
Jesus speaks thirty-four words; only one is 
direct. 

[JSTote.— "Go." Matthew 8: 32.] 

7. To Peter on the water. 

57 



Greatness 



[Note.— '* Come." Matthew 14: 29.] 
The Supreme Redeemer. — Jesus is Heaven's 
best to bring us to our best. No man could 
be pure enough, or strong or wise enough, to 
do for us what is needed to be done. No 
angel is swift or faultless or competent enough 
to answer our startling need of help. In Jesus 
there is asserted God's exhaustive plan for 
man. This is enough. Even Jesus '* shall be 
satisfied" with this. Upon the earth, whose 
fruits and flowers so lavishly ripen and sweeten 
for you and me, the great transaction of the 
universe has taken place. Even the final 
judgment cannot transcend this in greatness, 
for judgment has been committed to Him and 
because He is ^'the Son of Man. '^'^ Authority 
either in scope or duration cannot transcend 
this, for ''to Him every knee shall bow" and 
the supremacy of government shall be realized 
in ''the Lamb which is in the midst of the 
throne." Creation did not equal this, for 
there He spake and it was done, but in this 
there is conflict so persistent that He is done — 
done to the death; but there is victory so 
sufficient that to the whole race, as a free gift, 
it is offered by this victor over death. Where 
are the sweat, the tears, the sighs, the groans, 
68 



Ube Great Sa\>iour 



the death in creation? Here they tell of a 
transaction issuing so splendidly that hnman 
hearts through it utter their praise and exult 
in the grandeur of their victory, with angels 
accompanying in the jubilation as only the 
morning stars were said to do there. 

Lo, He is the first and the last, the alpha 
and omega, as if all literature properly spelled 
out by the use of the alphabet should pay 
its tribute to Him whose greatness never 
originated within the periods of humanly 
reckoned time, and when human greatness in 
Him shall have come to its fuller realization, 
He will yet be Jesus Christ, the same yesterday 
and to-day and forever. Matthew 10 : 28 ; 
Isaiah 5:3. 

To sum up, let us look in contrast at the 
pretender, the fakir or other deceiver. 

He is not from the earth. They are surely 
not from above. 

He struggles not after existence. Theirs is 
a long, hard struggle. 

He is not conscious of deficiency. With 
them defect dogs their weary steps at every 
turn in the road. 

He is not a dreamer. Dreaming and guess- 
ing are chronic with them. 
59 



Greatness 



He is no mystifier. Glamour is the chief 
stock in trade with them. 

He is without fault. Where does their fault 
end? 

He is the principle imparter. They make 
much of place and form. 

He is the sin def eater. The best they can 
do is to awaken an awful sense of sin. 

He is the death def eater. They are captives 
of death. 

His is world-wide dominion. Theirs is local 
usurpation. 

He is master of the centuries. In antiquity 
they are distanced by Him and their future is 
doomed. 

He is the Saviour of the world. They 
promote ruinous caste. 

He is friendly without policy. They are 
policy men and where is their friendliness? 

He compasses the highest and the lowest. 
They are never high and their lowness is a fall. 

He is from eternity. They are of this 
morning. 

He is the Messiah. There is but one. 

He is coming again. They are passing 
away forever. 

He is the supreme Eedeemer. They have 
no merit with which to redeem. 
60 



Ibumllits 



HUMILITY 

If you had a position as an elevator boy in 
a hotel and the alarm of fire was sounded 
when you stood in your elevator at the first 
floor, what would Humility prompt you to do? 
Would it be to run to the street for safety, or 
to run the car down to the basement for self- 
abasement, or would it be to speed up to the 
sixth story and rescue inmates of the burning 
building? Eemember, we are not asking what 
would be the brave thing to do, or what would 
be the humane thing. Our question is, what 
would be the prompting of Humility? 

Well, what would be the prompting of 
Pride? Pride always looks out for itself. It 
wants its own, and seeks its own — its own 
name, wealth, health, safety, clothes, comfort 
and way. Pride says, ^' While I would like the 
praise for the deed, yet it is too risky. I 
might die in the attempt.'' Pride is always 
funnel-shaped and pours calculation and 
results in upon itself. Pride might dream of 
building another hotel less than a square away 
and gaining the field for financial profit, 
because of the destruction of the one in 
61 



Greatness 



question. Pride might say, ''I would then be 
manager instead of elevator boy." 

What would be the prompting of Humility? 
Humility is lowliness. With man Lowliness 
cannot be without Love. Like some birds, 
always nesting on the ground instead of in the 
trees, Love always nests in a lowly heart, and 
from that nest Love hatches such a brood that 
it is called Grace. God giveth Grace unto the 
lowly — that is a free, unmerited gift — Grace 
and Truth came by Jesus Christ. Grace is the 
current. Truth is the wire, Christ is the dynamo. 

Is it not plain that in a sentient, conscious 
character like man's, no grace can be without 
producing its legitimate action and expression? 
If mercy is there, the action or expression will 
be merciful. If joy is there, it will be joyous, 
and if Love is there, it will be loving. Then 
if Love expresses itself, the plainest Christian 
expression of that is Calvary, where He lays 
down His life, although extended above the 
earth on a cross. Will not the elevator boy 
when humble go high up to the sixth story 
to rescue others? For Humility cannot exist 
a third of a second without Love nesting 
there. It is always met by God's *^naw. 
And Love will act sacrificially. 
62 



?j 



Ibumilfti? 



What will Humility do in a controversy? 
Will it answer? Or will it keep still? It will 
do both. Jesiis did. If it is silent, it will be 
silent in love ; if it answers it will speak the 
truth in love. Humility makes man the high- 
way of God. Will He speak or be silent? 
When that is settled Humility is rewarded. It 
looks for God and God's truth to be asserted. 
Look at Daniel. He was humble enough to 
die that God and His truth might be asserted, 
and he was humble enough on that account to 
refuse to yield to the opponents of God. Up 
the steps of Humility did this noted brother 
of ours — the mentioning of whose splendid 
record brings a blush — make his way to the 
position of third man in the Kingdom. But 
forget not that the inquiries and answers which 
distinguish the record are not about Daniel, 
but about Daniel's God— ''Is thy God able?" 
*'My God hath sent his angel." The humble 
soul can afford to wait, for God is sure to move 
over that highway. Who could be so cour- 
ageous as the humble man? 

What of Paul? Here is one saying that he 

is the least of all saints, yet manager of his 

captors on the Mediterranean, and assuring 

them when they are frightened. He com- 

63 



Greatness 



mands, reproves and exhorts; he glories and 
rejoices, knowing well that God always watches 
the highway of Humility. He was too reverent 
to boast, too teachable to usurp, and too con- 
fident in God to fawn. 

In the controversy Humility has no gates to 
open and no bridges to repair. The very word 
by which it is named guarantees a thoroughfare 
for the assertion of God. And when God 
speaks, blessed are they who are on that side. 

How will Humility afEect the servant? The 
question for the servant is not, "Am I little 
enough to serve?" but, rather, "Am I great 
enough?" Why is not the low position as good 
as the high? How could the location make 
the worth? 

Oh, the majesty of serving! To light of dawn 
and freshening dews, to guardian care and food 
for soul and body, to His covenant, atonement. 
His presence, His promises and more than the 
most that could be said does Qod serve His 
creature man. 

How did man get so that he did not want to 
be lowly? By consenting to the temptation of 
Satan that he should disobey God. Christ, 
having girded himself with a towel, washed the 
disciples' feet, conscious that He was their 
64 



Ibumilit^ 



Lord and Master. To man he looked like a 
slave, stooping there. But that was not 
slavery. That was the mastery to which 
two thousand years pay reverent tribute. 

How will Humility affect the Master? Pride 
wants to manage, right or wrong. Humility 
wants to obey. Humility would be God's 
watch-dog, attending to a nod of the head in 
the parlor as readily as a whistle in the field. 
It is not fear. Ah, fear, that slyest enemy ! 
Anger and malice carry bludgeons. Fear hides 
in the pocket. But for scores of years fear will 
keep men bound and flayed. Humility is not 
cowardice, though it always costs. Worthy 
masters have all paid the price for mastery. 
The rock must yield vastly before it can be 
the wire, grasping and controlling the electric 
current. The humble master will give 
directions in love. He himself remembers 
that his Master is in heaven. 

Moreover, foolhardiness has no part with 
Humility. The foolhardy will leap down the 
elevator shaft. Humility will run the car. 
Which is the braver? Men do not always like 
to consider that they need protection, but they 
do. Shelter is indispensable. You may pay 
the rent, sit at the table and sleep in the bed, 
65 



©reatness 



but by no known means can you be the house. 
You may pay the fare and enjoy the voyage, 
but by no known means can you be the ship. 
Foolhardiness would freeze, or smite, or drown 
you. Humility provides for protection from 
the weather and mastery over the wares. 

Now, it is not the question who can be little 
enough to be humble. It is, rather, who is 
great enough. Strong and large men go down 
into lower places than weak and little children. 
It is a question of trend, rather than size. 
Art thou great enough to consent that the 
Holy God shall sway thee as if thou wert His 
hand, to raise thee high above the throng, or 
with thee gather the gems in the ocean 
depths, hidden away miles below sight, so 
only He shall be glorified? Then the greatness 
of Humility is ,the groundwork for such a 
union with the Infinite. 

But are we not taught by the Master to 
become as little children? Indeed. Yet, that 
cannot mean that we are to become childish, 
for we are also taught by our Master to sit 
down and consider before we build the tower, 
or engage in the war. The lowly one who 
became like a little child was also entrusted to 
work in the vineyard. What is the moral 



IBumiUt^ 



characteristic of a little child? We are told 
that it is teachableness, and doubtless the 
candidate for the Kingdom of Heaven is 
teachable. But is it a distinguishing character- 
istic of a little child to be teachable? How 
often little children are opinionated! If the 
question were asked of one hundred people, 
which distinguishes a little child more, teach- 
ableness or cuteness, would not the majority 
answer cuteness? But cuteness has not a 
suflBcient moral feature to give us the answer 
to our question. Is not the distinguishing 
moral characteristic of a little child innocence^ 
However much the child may err, he is not 
guilty. The Court Eoom of the Lord Almighty 
does not report him condemned. Except a 
man be turned again and be pronounced 
innocent, he cannot enter the Kingdom of 
Heaven. Except it is pronounced that there is 
therefore now no condemnation, the man is 
not in Christ Jesus. God's kingdom is the 
heritage of guiltless braves. 

Man is great enough to be accounted guilty. 
He is great enough for God to announce 
conditions under which he can receive a 
pardon so full that he becomes as innocent as a 
little child. 

67 



©reatness 



But is not the Christian exhorted to be 
lowly? Yes, our Master, too, is lowly. Do 
we estimate that a single small fraction of His 
greatness was exchanged for His lowliness? 
He came down very low to lift us very high, 
but He did not abandon the greatness of His 
power to lift. When lowly, by the finger of 
God He cast out devils, and investing His own 
followers with like lowliness and greatness, 
said, ''By whom do your sons cast them out?" 
That word rendered lowly is the very word 
rendered in the text, ''Every mountain and 
every hill shall be made low." It is a picture 
of how far down in the quest for souls His 
heart would plunge; but what worth to the 
descending unless the greatness to bring up 
what He came for is His? And of what value 
would any grade of lowliness be to us, unless 
with the teachableness of soul we are linked to 
Him in holy greatness, to lift souls up where 
they become the children of the Highest? 

Surely no definition of Humility would be 
correct which would signify that it was less 
than a great grace. Humility itself is greatness 
and not littleness. How it magnifies the 
essential character of the centurion when he 
says that he is not worthy that the Lord should 
68 



Ibumflit^ 



come under his roof! How great the con- 
ception which so estimates our Lord! The 
Syrophenician woman does not appear poor but 
rather richer when we hear her say, ''Truth, 
Lord, yet the dogs eat of the crumbs," for now 
she is great enough to be humble and great 
enough to appreciate the crumbs. If she 
thinks so much of them, what must be her 
estimate of the feast! Humility is so great 
that when accepted it reveals greatness in its 
possessor. The teachable are the most likely 
to learn, the unworthy are the accepters of 
imparted worthiness, the willing-to-receive are 
the destined to rule, the humble shall be 
exalted. 

The two sons of Zebedee are asking Jesus 
for position at the sacrifice of true greatness, 
because they do not recognize the value of 
humble service. He does not turn them away 
from their ambition by pointing out the path 
of smallness to them. He says, ''Whosoever 
would become great among you shall be your 
minister, for verily the Son of Man came to 
minister." 

Is humility a great grace? Is it costly? Is 
it mighty? Does character have anything 
about it more truly invaluable than humility? 
09 



©reatness 



It is not only true that humility is a means 
of greatness of character, it is of itself great. 
Neither Faith, nor Hope, nor Love can thrive 
without that grace which has no puffing up. 
It is the Teacher of Teachers who says, '''The 
same is great.^'^ And He is engaging a little 
child for an illustration when He says it. (See 
Luke 9 : 48.) 



70 



Xlbe 3Broa& /iDan 



THE BEOAD MAN 

It is wearisome to sample the unripened 
thoughts expressing themselves in the phrase, 
the narrow-minded Christian. Some men run 
away with a little bite of truth and imagine 
that they are simply showing forth the 
elasticity of the whole piece. Calling them- 
selves broad-minded, they are proven the 
narrowest. 

''Let us be rational," say they. ''We do 
not place any value upon sentiment." 
Eational, indeed, but is sentiment irrational? 
Would two multiplied by two be any more 
rational than two bouquets of roses added to 
two other bouquets of roses? Is love in the 
heart less real than nails on the fingers? There 
is sentiment in the cut of the hair, the cloth 
on the dinner table, admiration for children, 
the glory of the sunset and in the flag of the 
nation. Why not admit a rational senti- 
mentality, and also a sentimental rationality. 
If we cannot admit the first of these, our 
greatest raptures declare our imbecility ; and if 
we cannot admit the second, then adding 
machines are more nearly ideal than men and 
71 



©reatness 



women. But where is the man who will find 
in an adding machine a congenial consort? 

Who is the broad man? This man who can 
shout in the streets until he summons to action 
a score of men to rescue the children from the 
burning building, and then, entering the room 
where the wounded child lies speechless, 
shouts in the same tone of voice again — is he 
the broad man? Or shall we find breadth 
represented in the character of the man who, 
while shouting others into action at the fire, 
fails not to approach on tiptoe and speak in a 
whisper where the wounded child is pillowed? 
There has appeared among us one broad 
enough to still the stormy waters with a word, 
and also to take the little children in His 
arms, or weep at the grave of Lazarus. 

Men may be too valorous to be gentle. You 
may harden your muscle by freezing your arm, 
but you spoil the arm. Men who boast of 
being practical, who test everything by the 
word business, must not forget that the 
broader character will pray and weep over a 
wicked city as well as arrange for the feeding 
of the thousands in companies of fifties and 
hundreds. Any man who thinks that Jesus 
represents an unbusinesslike life should read 
72 



Ubc 3Btoa& /fiian 



again the sixth chapter of Mark's Gospel, 
verses 35 to 44, and the eighth chapter of 
Mark's Gospel, the first nine verses. He will 
find that by selecting eleven verses from those 
two chapters, and within the compass 
mentioned, there is business detail, representing 

Time, 

Physical Endurance, 

Distance, 

Quantity, 

Eest, 

Order, 

Management of Men, and 

Dispatch. 
Yet these characteristics are His who took 
little children up in His arms and blessed them, 
who was much in prayer, who spoke much of 
purity, gentleness, meekness, compassion. 
Indeed, the incident in the eighth chapter of 
Mark's Gospel is prefaced with the words, ^'I 
have compassion on the multitude." 

The Stoics taught the sterner qualities of 
character, such as valor, honesty, persistence, 
sturdiness ; but Jesus teaches these, and more. 
He adds compassion, gentleness, love. Beyond 
the narrowness of stoicism, He spreads out the 
landscape of a broad character. 
73 



Greatness 



It must not be assumed that the man who 
has one master is narrow-minded. There 
should be room enough for any finite nature 
in an infinite God. If theft and murder and 
adultery represent the open spaces for breadth 
in character, then, of course, the man who 
will not yield to these is narrow. But if these 
represent diseases so deadly that wherever they 
touch on a continent they mean ruin, then, of 
course, they have nothing essentially to do 
with the dimensions of the continent, for the 
broader the land and the vaster the population, 
the more evidence is borne to their horror. 
And what is true of these more vicious 
tendencies of a bad life, is true of the devils in 
the garbs of the angels of light. Character- 
lessness is not breadth. However broad the 
character may be, let us settle upon this: Man 
does not begin a plausible estimate until he 
begins with character. Indeed, that con- 
sideration enters largely into the estimating of 
a dog or a horse. Character, start there. 
Human character is God's safety deposit. No 
angel in heaven and no devil in hell and no 
man on earth can injure your character. God 
will not allow anybody to do that, except you. 
Whatever may be said of reputation, your 
74 



XTbe 3Btoa& /©an 



character is, and ever will be, yours. You may 
stretch a sheet of gutta-percha and break it 
into fifty pieces, but it is no longer a sheet of 
gutta-percha. You may think to make your 
character broader, when really you have broken 
it. 

A broad character is too clean for hypocrisy, 
or boodle, or boasting, or sin. Why should 
breadth be considered a kind of guarantee for 
either neglect or positive wrong-doing? 

It is a characteristic of old-fashioned ortho- 
doxy that it provides for great things. (The 
expression "old-fashioned orthodoxy" is not 
intended to mean strict adherence to every 
formal statement of some former day which 
passed as orthodox. You may put new sized 
eyelets and dent them with new wrinkles into 
the shoe, or you may lace the shoe up with 
colored shoelaces if you desire, but let us have 
the old-fashioned shape, roomy enough for the 
foot, made of leather tanned to wear, and put 
together to turn water. Stamp it on the bot- 
tom with a modern stamp if you wish, cut the 
soles or ankles with new curves or corners if 
you desire ; but this is a cold, stormy world ; give 
us something that will really protect.) Old- 
fashioned orthodoxy teaches that man has a 
75 



©reatness 



great character. It teaches that he is a great 
sinner, that he has a great Saviour, and that 
he gets a great salvation. It is a big thing. 
Using the average interpretations of what is 
meant by modern liberalism, I could not be a 
liberalist. Liberalism appears to me to say: 
*' You are not responsible for much; you are 
uncertain about being capable of much ; there 
is not much required of you ; little is provided ; 
you cannot get much, if you get it you will not 
be sure of it, and if you do not get it you will 
not fall short of much." Old-fashioned ortho- 
doxy says: '' You are great; you are greatly 
wrong; you are greatly redeemed; you can get 
what you are redeemed for ; you can know it ; 
you can enjoy it; you escape great peril; you 
receive great glory, and you will never hear 
the last of it." 

The broad man is a forgiven man. He has 
not evaded the courtroom ; he has stood before 
the Judge and received his acquittal. 

The elders in an old Scotch church are said 
to have been disturbed by the shouting of a 
brother during religious services. The Scotch 
minister advised the elders that if they would 
send the man up to the manse he would cure 
him of the troublesome practice. 
76 



Ube 3Broa& /iDan 



Arriving at the manse, he hurried him into 
the reception room and, presenting him with a 
book of easy science, advised him to read that 
book, get better informed and shout less. 

The shouter was left alone with his book, 
but soon broke the silence of the house by- 
shouting, ''Glory, glory hallelujah!" 

The minister, nonplused, hurried into the 
room and inquired, "What are you shouting 
about now? " 

*'Why, something I read in this book made 
me shout." 

"Something in that book ! " said the minister. 
"What can you find there to make you shout?" 
Then the shouter, his face beaming with 
delight, replied: "Why, this book says that 
in places the sea is three miles deep, and the 
Bible says that the Lord has cast my sins into 
the depths of the sea, and if they are three 
miles down the devil will drown before he can 
ever bring them up and charge them against 
me." 

The market of public discussion may trade 
away a good many precious things, but we will 
do well to hold steadily on to such expressions 
as "He forgiveth all thine iniquities"; 
"Through this man is preached unto you the 
77 



(Breatness 



forgiveness of sins," and ''Thy sins, which are 
many, are all forgiven thee," before we dispose 
of them in exchange for the guess, which guilt 
will not allow the privilege of restfulness. 

There is regeneration. The broad man is 
broad enough to enjoy the love of God. That 
breadth by which he gets into that enjoyment 
begins with breadth. The penitent did not 
step down to be forgiven; he rose up to 
recognize the influence of his life over his 
fellowmen, and against his Saviour, and, turn- 
ing away not from the punishment of wrong 
but from the wrong itself, he found an answer 
from the heart of God which took away from 
him the love for the wrong. He is now a new 
creature. He has launched into the wealth of 
infinity and knows that the courses are 
shoreless. 

There is purity. The broad man is a clean 
man. When we speak of purity we are apt to 
consider metal, or water, or fabrics. Pure 
gold is gold, pure water is water, pure silk is 
silk, a pure heart is a heart. Assailed by ten 
thousand enemies throwing dirt from every 
quarter, yet is the man of God confident of a 
cleansing that cleanseth. Partial chastity must 
be considered unchastity. 
78 



XTbe BtoaJ) /IDan 



There is a fullness of the Holy Spirit. The 
broad man is too broad to attepmt to carry out 
life's programme with his own effort. He is 
ranging in realms of duty and privilege, where 
he knows his all but infinite want can alone 
be met by an infinite supply. There is too 
much of him to say only that he will try to do 
right when there is an equivalent equipment 
for doing right. To him the will of God 
represents no adversary. He accepts it as his 
boon. Pentecost is as real to him as the Ten 
Commandments ; the fullness of the Spirit as 
actual as the atoning blood. You cannot set 
the standard too high for him. He will aim at 
it and he will gain assurance. 

'^The spirit of glory and of God resteth upon 
you." Oh, to be the resting place of so beau- 
teous and so holy a character ! Eest, we know, 
does not always signify a cure for weariness. 
It is also a preventer of weariness. It is an 
easy yoke. It is fitness. 

What shall be said of the soul upon whom 
the spirit of glory and of God fits? When 
glory, ay, when the very spirit of glory is con- 
genial, it would seem that purity, brilliance, 
splendidness, richness, even God's purity, 
brilliance, splendidness and richness, fitted the 
79 



©reatness 



soul. For the word here reading '^resteth'' 
is the very same word rendered as a noun in 
the Saviour's charming pledge to the laboring 
and heavy laden: ^'I will give you rest. ' This, 
too, when the storm beats down so awfully that 
Peter calls it, just two verses before, a "fiery 
trial and a time of reproach." 

But, after all, what fire can outburn the fire 
of Pentecost? What re;^roacher can aggravate 
him whose name is Comforter? As garnets are 
gotten from the nests of scorpions, so presence 
glorious above all jewels is found resting upon 
the trusting soul when the storm bites. How 
maj estic ! ' ' Eesteth ' ' ! 

The Holy Spirit is God revealed the more 
actually. He is the great interpreter, the 
teacher who lodges with the student, the giver 
whose hand ever touches the hand of the taker. 

His baptism, His anointing, His filling, are 
really the providing for the meeting of life's 
testings in the majesty of peace. 

His coming within us and the receipt of 
power cannot but be cause and efEect, since He 
brings the power with Him. 

Now what is the real fitness in the follower 
of Jesus for the receiving of His power? Is it 
not weakness? 

80 



Ube 3Broa^ /iDan 



Just weakness fully given over to Him. His 
power is perfected in weakness — weakness with 
great capacity. 

Actual breadth cannot be without a conscious 
up-welling Christian experience. In a day 
when many educators proceed as if scholarship 
were found in upsetting every accepted truth, 
the broad man will refuse to live on, without 
knowing how he stands before God. Some of 
our educators seem to aim at placing the man 
in the center of a circle on a swiftly moving 
turn-table, out from which every radius runs 
directly to a note of interrogation, and the 
swifter the man is whirled around amid the 
maze of (???) the more scholarly is he. No 
wonder men fail to know whether prayer is 
answered or God is good. No wonder 
hosannas languish and there is no witness of 
the Spirit. No wonder sinners are unconvicted 
and Christians unanointed. This bewildered 
whirler is too dizzy to credit his own con- 
sciousness. Thank God, there is a higher 
education and a holy knowing. 

The broad man will feed his spirit through 

the word of God. The newspaper professes 

to be a photograph taker. The magazine is a 

kind of composite-picture maker. They are 

81 



©teatness 



admittedly wonderful means of distributing 
information, even after you deduct the false 
reports from them. But here is a man, who 
once a day, seven days of the week, surfeits his 
mind with murders, adulteries, thefts, divorces, 
boodles, wars, blasphemies, perditions, out of 
these columns. Is it any wonder that he does 
not know what he believes? Is it any wonder 
that such a man becomes so narrow that he 
discredits the honor of all men, not to say the 
faithfulness of God? To say the very least in 
the consideration, the broad man will take 
plentifully from the Gospel and prayer, an 
antidote to this poison, and allow at least one 
day in seven for respite from the dose. 

Love will control the broad man. It is not 
sufficient to say that such a character will be 
loving. Love will be constraining. Love is 
not an ornament. Love is alive. Shake hands 
with it. Surrender to it. Be filled with it. 
How broad is Love! How mighty! In the 
family, at great turning points in action, in 
heaven, how long-lived, far-reaching, unfail- 
ing is Love! What is its breadth and length 
and depth and height? How could a man be 
a broad man and still be a stranger to the 
Love of God shed abroad in his heart by the 
82 



Zbe BtoaD /iDan 



Holy Spirit? Could his motives even be large 
unless he eagerly strove to reach into the 
wealth of that which originated a mother's 
heart, a father's affections, Calvary and the 
ultimate never-concluded glory of the Kingdom 
whose politics cannot be found either corrupt 
or inadequate. 

What quieting and girding come to the soul 
when, if the explanation of some newly-found 
theory is not at hand and the intellect does 
not quite lead to a restful conclusion, we know 
that ''love is the fulfilling of the law"! We 
know that we cannot reason to the last 
analysis; that would require infinite ability; 
but we can love, love, love. For God's love so 
great for us is also pledged to be in us. 

Immortal love, forever full, forever flowing, free; 
Forever whole, forever shared, a never-ebbing sea. 

There is splendid living. What shall be said 
of the broad man's prayer victory? George 
Mueller, J. Hudson Taylor, Paul, and a host 
of others, have placed the question of prayer 
where even arithmetic bears its tribute. Jesus 
represents the broad man inviting the poor 
to His house. Note in that illustration of His 
the word "because," because they cannot 



Greatness 



recompense thee. He sends His apostles out 
with the commission, ''Freely give." He begins 
His golden rule with the word therefore, that 
preceding being a description of God's good- 
ness to men generally, and the rule beginning, 
therefore, that is, "act like God." Bestow 
rather than demand. Act as if you owned a 
universe and could not be sold out. Oh, the 
rapture of bestowing! A man shall take a 
steer from the western prairie, convert him 
into cash, send the cash to India and make 
twenty little Hindus sing the doxology. He 
has transposed the steer into an anthem. 

Live up to your ideas, redeemed man. 
Know you not that you shall judge angels? 
Hear the voice declaring, "To him will I give 
to sit with me on my throne." Let us get to 
living. 

Once when I came to the main street of a 
little American city on Saturday I saw there 
thronging multitudes of farmers and their 
families, and I said, "They do not get to 
church much. These are the boys who come 
to the cities and get drunk. These are the 
girls who become the prey of the vicious. 
These mothers are weary; these men are 
plodders. Let me stand on this corner while 
84 



Zhc 3Broa& /iDan 



God shall make of me a broken piece of glass, 
through which He shall divide the rays of hope 
that fall from His face, and let me send them 
home gladdened and saved. But," I said, 
*'am I ready? What shall be my message? 
What shall be the first sentence?" Then I 
thought, gladly would I suffer seven years of 
pain just to be really ready for twenty minutes 
of this. 

We talk of the society of Heaven, but the 
Christian is represented as a great bestower in 
eternity. He serves and praises. He is out- 
turning and out-giving from the midmost. He 
breaks forth into singing. That is the spring 
freshet of character. And what a company — 
the purest, the noblest, the best ! Let me ask 
you, friend, very definitely, and I trust humbly, 
have you and I table manners for that? 

Man is too great to find in form or ceremonial 
the supply for his soul. Form and ceremonial, 
like the gifts of nature, may serve him, but 
they are ever crouching at his feet, rather than 
rising before his veneration. The Hindu on 
the Ganges may feel himself safe for the great 
future because he has come within the territory 
marked out by the priest as the territory of 
salvation — as if geography could save him I 
85 



©reatness 



Or, the man dwelling within the provinces of 
Christendom may, by counting so many beads, 
or reciting so many prayers, or keeping so 
many fast days, or going to church so many 
times, persuade himself that he has gained 
much for the future life. Indeed, there is a 
subtle tendency to dismiss responsibility from 
one's mind by relegating the whole transaction 
to some priest, or some organization, or some 
theory. Eitualism may find a welcome as a 
substitute for contrition and consecration. To 
pay the priest so much money, rather than 
meet God with His searching, may be resorted 
to as a method of easing conscience; or to 
adopt some form of the expression of Hinduism 
concerning pain, or sickness, or sin, based 
upon the consideration that all will ultimately 
be absorbed in God, and, therefore, excusing a 
man from actual accountability. This covering 
of sins may be welcomed even by the 
intelligent and rich, but man should account 
himself too great for this. Himself, his 
character and his God, these represent his 
efficiency. No ceremonial act, no temple, no 
flowing water, no city, no Jerusalem, no 
mountain of Samaria, but a spirit, acting in 
spirit and in truth — this is man's heritage. 
86 



TCbe Broa5 /iDan 



Jesus did not even signalize Bethlehem as 
a holy city. He did not even designate 
Gethsemane as a garden distinguished either 
for beauty or for continued sacred uses, nor — 
may I say it? — did He ever pronounce that 
Calvary, as a geographical location, should be 
the continued center of any particular virtue. 
No river is powerful enough, no garden or 
landscape beautiful enough, no olive trees 
rugged enough, no uplands, hills or mountains 
prospective enough, to aggregate the value of 
character. Turks or Arabs, Mohammedans or 
Hottentots, Infidels, Hypocrites or Saints may 
own the real estate, Christ will have the char- 
acter. With Him, being is more than trav- 
eling. With Him, truth, love, faith, peace, 
hope, sacrifice, obedience, joy, honor, these are 
broader than all landscapes, costlier than all 
temples, more potent than all ceremonials, 
worth more than jewels, and more real than 
granite. 

Now, is there any legitimate sacrament or 
ceremonial which Jesus honored? Let it trail at 
the feet in sacred obedience to the character 
which these graces enrich. 

We cannot consent that the broad man shall 
believe everything in general and nothing in 

87 



Greatness 



particular, that he shall be the latest success 
in the mimicry of the average deportment of a 
selected fraction of the population, that he 
shall call wrong right for to-day and have the 
shame of his name mentioned under breath 
to-morrow, that he shall try a little of every- 
thing, so be it that he does not become really 
devout and really does not prove the worth of 
anything he tries. What would be thought of a 
man who in the physical realm would require 
a little of everything, wholesome or poisonous, 
mixed for his food each day, refusing only good 
bread? Broad or foolhardy? And what shall 
be said of the man who insists upon a com- 
parable bill of fare in the moral realm for his 
character? Ah, the truly broad man does not 
mix right and wrong. He is no doctrinal 
hobbyist or stickler for mere terms. But 
where will he find the finger-boards which 
point to the horizons of his redeemed life so 
accurately as in rightly-worded doctrine, and 
where can he get any statement of the riches 
of grace which will fit so well or lead to such 
engaging antecedents or be so generally 
understood as that given in the oft-emphasized 
terms of the Bible? He has an open eye for all 
discovery, but he keeps to the path and reckons 



XTbe BtoaD /IDan 



the danger of the precipice. He has joy to 
pour out, but it is deeper and richer than 
tickling. He has a heart for all, but it is for 
their real welfare. He sees victory lighting all 
hills, but he never thinks to kindle the lights 
by his own changeable moods. He would not 
be content to pose as clever. He is an 
explorer, tracing the sources of character and 
noting their courses that he may bless them. 
He is an inventor, unlocking heart doors and 
letting woes out and peace in. 

He is a member of society, the aristocracy of 
the skies. He is youthful, he belongs to the 
new creation. He is rich, but he will not count 
his wealth in things that will burn and break 
and vanish. *'A11 things" are his for all 
necessary purposes, and ''all things work 
together for good" and he ''has all and 
abounds." He is victor in affliction and does 
not lose his head in prosperity, for he is too 
great to reckon character-health resultant upon 
financial massage or the fanning of fame or 
ease. He is at peace with God and God is 
infinite, hence his breadth. 

We must faithfully recognize the assertion 
of God, or our thoughts of human life, the 
Bible and God will all fall hopelessly out of 
89 



Greatness 



proportion. God exists. He also asserts. 
The created things so clearly reveal Him that 
idolatry is inexcusable. The Word is so vital 
with the effort to reveal Him that its points of 
moderation are in danger of being accounted 
as exaggeration. The Holy Spirit has come 
and He does convict of sin, and of sin in its 
relation to our personal Eedeemer, Jesus. 

You will hear men talk of their f ellowmen as 
generous and noble, and for those reasons 
probably sure of victory in the world to come. 
But the spurious charity which commends in 
the least narrow self-righteousness in our 
fellowmen, discounts awfully the assertion of 
God and also counts God in large measure out 
from man's recognition. Then future reward, 
future punishment, the atonement, and 
holiness all fall the prey to questioning ; wrong 
is condoned rather than condemned and the 
luster of righteousness is made dim. 

Our concern is not so strong in behalf of the 
man whose standard is lowered and whose 
thinking is confused by this method as it is on 
account of the assault it makes against the 
living, pleading, promising God. You cannot 
properly raise the estimate of man to a higher 
grade without glorifying God by raising the 

90 



Ube Btoat) /IDan 



estimate of His perfection. Startling if not 
blasphemous is the apparent abandon with 
which even some who profess to be followers 
of Jesus speak of the moral standing of their 
fellowmen as if God would be an intermeddler 
if He should command recognition, not to say 
supreme recognition. Men talk as if God were 
not listening. Men speak concerning the 
affairs dearest to One whom they call their best 
friend, and quite forget (or else refuse to credit 
the deeper whisperings within) that shortly 
they will be talking life's affairs over with Him 
in what they call prayer — and He will not 
forget. Narrow liberality! Count God in. 
Keach into the Infinite. Eeckon law as real 
as mental gymnastics. Eecognize Gospel as 
actually as you do the hodgepodge of thinking. 
Look up through the boughs. There is a 
pillar of fire. Awaken. Perhaps your head 
has been cooled on the stony pillow of 
adversity. **Lo, God is in this place.'* 



91 



XTbe ©teat JSooft 



THE GREAT BOOK 

There is a literature wliose mastery of 
antiquity is such that over its portals are 
inscribed the words, ''In the beginning," and 
whose welcomes to inyestigation and profit in 
the wealth which it discloses are fittingly set 
forth by the concluding of its message in the 
word "freely." Its left hand is thus seen to 
lay hold of earliest truth, and its right is 
extended to dispense to the latest need. 

It speaks as if it never told all that it knows. 
It seems to shape an orb of truth the shining 
from which goes back before all creation, out 
beyond all dream, down beyond all hope and 
up into all glory — the orbit of which is fitted 
to the life of every man. 

It speaks to tell what is most needed. It is 
a law with which to fence the precipice. It is 
a Gospel with which to paint the fence so that 
it may be easier seen, better preserved and 
rendered beautiful. The fence is decorated 
with rubies. 

It deals with public life. The nation, the 
city, affairs of health and morals of the public 
are here the objects of law, correction, 
93 



Greatness 



sympathy and blessing. It addresses the race, 
the tribe, the community as a whole. 

Not content to deal with the public life only, 
it follows the individual into the inner 
character. It singles out the poorest and vilest 
as well as the most lofty and refined, and 
placing an estimate great and high upon each 
and both, it deals with the secret things of the 
body as well as those of the spirit. It talks to 
him within his inner character a whispered 
message, which behind all external act and form 
finds its way into the very core of his conscience. 

With a strange abandon to its mission, this 
book reveals no fear in the presence of either 
antagonists or competitors. As if it disre- 
garded all that might be said or done in 
opposition to its words, it tells of weakness as 
of strength, of darkness as of light, of failure 
as of victory, regarding the existence of its 
opponents only by the mercy and compassion 
with which it seeks their ignorance to cure. It 
accounts for wars and advocates for peace, it 
tells of sin and champions holiness, it paints 
at large the awfulness of death, yet urges 
provision therefor and gives eternal life. It 
mentions very few other books which bid for 
claim with or against its own, yet ever again 



Ube (Breat Boo\{ 



it digs the grave and buries deep the things of 
such it has slain, or sends its light to render 
luminous the flickering taper set for truth in 
ancient books. With a ''thus saith the Lord," 
it clears the way for its increasing processions 
of witnesses out from the mist and down the 
brightened centuries. 

Its abstruse teachings find a swift assent 
because its plainer truths are borne upon such 
sympathy, such openness of speech, such love. 
The reader, like a child whose mother never 
deceived him, looks into the clouds content to 
say, "So many days have never failed to shine 
their brightness forth upon me, though I do 
not see the sun as yet, that rustle I have heard 
before, and with confidence I know Truth's 
day will dawn through all these mists." 

Science here is knowledge otherwise unob- 
tainable, except when the character of man 
is viewed; then every little blade of grass, 
or hair, or wing of bird, must be explained, 
until man has enough to guarantee his mastery 
and peace. To the perishing, the material, the 
thing ^ it offers least of all. To deathless, regal 
principle it brings a treatise all its own. It 
seems like higher science. To deeper depths 
and loftier heights it leads the way, never to 
95 



©reatness 



report a guess. It sees the invisible, declares 
the divine ; its laboratory is eternity. 

Such wealth of simplicity here abounds that 
whole infinities of truth are lisped in little 
paragraphs by infant lips, while, uttered by 
the mentally infirm, their messages have been 
known to send a new discovery to the lost and 
benighted listeners. 

The very aged, and even the semi-comatose, 
have gathered hence expression of their peace 
and joy. ''The Lord is my Shepherd," ''Jesus 
wept," "Come unto me," "My grace is 
sufficient," "I know whom I have believed," 
"In the beginning God," and "I will never 
leave thee," these are but a few kernels from 
the granary of plain, food-fitting truths for 
simple minds of which this book gives such an 
immense supply. Acceptable and understand- 
able like water, air or food, these precious 
simplicities are offered here. 

This book is highest literature. It is also 
alphabet. Its simplicity ends before it wearies 
us, and its abstruseness charms rather than 
distracts us. How serene its beamings, how 
terrible its thunderings ! Its scope is adequate. 

It has a soul. Literatures there are of 
faultless grammatical construction and exact 
96 



Zbc ©teat Booft 



in illustration, and withal the outpourings of 
deeply wrought thinking, but they are dead. 

You read them, but they fail to breathe. 
Their dawns are things of canvas. Eyes have 
they, but they see not, neither speak they with 
their mouths. Their beauty you admire, but 
they were still-born. This book calls you, it 
seems to know your name and history, and even 
when you run from its approach its hand is 
found to press upon your character that surely 
it may embrace you. It is a thing of love as 
well as life. You read it and say, ''Who told 
you all?" When Mr. Edison experimented (it 
is said) he spoke into the telephone and with 
his fingers near the wire felt a pricking, and 
that led to the phonograph. What millions of 
our race will testify that the voice within this 
book pricked the very conscience when in sin ! 
It is the book of 

THE GKEAT II^VITATIOl^ 

''Come unto me all ye that labour and are 
heavy laden, and I will give you rest. — Come 
now, and let us reason together, saith the Lord : 
though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as 
white as snow; though they be red like crim- 
son, they shall be as wool. — ^For God so loved the 
97 



Greatness 



world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that 
whosoever believeth in him should not perish, 
but have eternal life. — He that spared not 
his own Son, but delivered him up for us all, 
how shall he not also with him freely give us 
all things? — Come, for all things are now 
ready. — He that will, let him take the water 
of life freely." Matt. 11:28; Isa. 1:18; 
John 3:16; Eom. 8:32; Luke 14:17; Eev. 
22:17. 

precious book ! Like a mother with the 
inhabitants of Christendom for her family! 
Betimes she seems beloved by all. No disturb- 
ing frown nor complaining word meets the 
charm of her smile. Her very name is costly 
ointment. They hear her entranced and 
exchange looks of approval and delight. They 
calmly stroke the very garments with which 
her precious form is clad. They embrace her. 
They kiss her. They say good-night so wrapt 
in fondness they scarcely know they live, so 
conscious of the loveliness of her. The sorrows 
of the day, its pains, its hunger and its tears 
are deeply drowned within the floods of melody 
with which her lullaby abounds. They waka 
to prove her counsel good. Her plans invite 
their highest hopes and fill the new day's 



Ube ©teat Booft 



light with bliss. If she reproves, it wakes 
their souls to tenderness. How could they 
grieve an object of such love! Oh, she is balm 
for wounds. Her kisses cure the pain, and 
when she quotes a rhyme, or tells a tale, the 
smiles crowd off the tears and laughter claims 
the music of their voices. Their very actions 
say, ''How good, how great, how true, how blest 
this mother is!" They cannot quite explain it 
all. She is to them the gift, the messenger of 
God, and when they walk the street together, 
the children of the neighborhood look on and 
dream. They say, ' ' How lovely such a family ! ' ' 
Her name is at the tables of the town a 
perfume sweet with love. 

And then betimes her children are so 
changed. They think her harsh. They plot 
to cross her will. They think her hardly wise 
or true. So changed! They cry, they curl 
the lip, they hide and fail to answer when she 
calls. They steal away that they may do their 
naughty deeds, they connive not to meet her. 
So changed ! They say her garments do not 
fit, her face is homely and her voice is harsh. 
Their plans are better far than hers. Her 
counsels, promises and ways are out of date. 
So changed! The clouds are thick between 
99 



Greatness 



her preciousness and them. Their hail is 
pelting on her head. And yet she changes 
not. This Mother-Book forgives, provides, 
directs and saves. She changes not. Anon 
they change again, and now to them she is most 
dear, most sweet. The children's cherishing 
again is seen. Her charm is o'er their 
neighbors cast, till lo, her sway they too accept 
and forth from men of every tribe is beard the 
cry, ''This Book is ours, from Him who made 
a mother's heart." 

''Most wondrous book, bright candle of the Lord, 
Star of eternity ! the only star 
By which the bark of man could navigate 
The sea of life, and gain the coast of bliss 
Securely ; only star which rose on time, 
And, on its dark and troubled billows still, 
As generation, drifting swiftly by, 
Succeeded generation, threw a ray 
Of heaven's own light, and to the hills of God, 
The everlasting hills, pointed the sinner's eye. 
This book, this glorious book, on every line 
Marked with the seal of high divinity, 
On every leaf bedewed with drops of love 
Divine, and with the eternal heraldry 
And signature of God Almighty stampt 
From first to last, this ray of sacred light, 
The lamp from off the everlasting throne, 
Mercy took down, and in the light of time 
Stood, casting on the dark her gracious bow, 
And even now beseeching men, with tears 
And earnest sighs, to read, believe, and live." 
100 



Otker Books ty Mr. Ostrom 

Out of the Cain-life into the Christ- 
life. 12mo, cloth $1.00 

The Dearest Psalm and The Model 

Prayer . .25 

Replete Religion 50 

Choice Extracts from "The Tongue 

of Fire." Per doz 35 

" Dulari " for Hotel Waitresses . . .10 

Per dozen, $1.00. Per hundred, $8.00. 



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SEP 3 1904 



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